Fish can die in a frenzy. We have seen a video of carp eradication where those eradicating the fish nearly got clobbered by the big brutes as they literally flew from the water in attempt to escape the effects of the poison. Its like tipping acid into the water. Ugly but super effective.

We topped it with a stunning ganache made from Phillys new Cream for baking.. Boil the cream hard, biff in a generous handful of milk chocolate buttons, then 50 grams of butter and 2tablespoons of icing sugar, let it cool and beat it till it goes pale.. Top the cake with it when cool.

The changes we made to the recipe to take it over the top and put it into the "evil as"

category was to was to put some choco chips in the main mixture and we didnt have buttermilk so we subbed it with milk ( non fat :-) ) and vinegar..

Friday, 27 August 2010

The Alan Hubbard affair always had a whiff about it.. We think there is still a bit of the Walter Mittys about this affair. Anyway, we are pretty sure we heard a very sad collective sigh from the South Island when the news nobody really wanted to believe trickled out this morning..

There appears to be bugger all ingredients left to bake a good financial pie with in Hubbards Cupboard.

There is a new restaurant in town and is a good un. Capri is so new that it has yet to get a website and its phone number is a bit hard to find but it had a full house for lunch today which shows the power of word of mouth in the Windy City.

Its sited in Featherston Street opposite D4 on the site of one of our old favourites Copita.

The ironic thing is that the outside awning is sponsored by VeuveClicquotand it is the signature house bubbles - So up until yesterday we had been avoiding the place.. However today was good.

The decor is stunning - girly, a bit mad, a lot sophisticated and very tasteful.

The chef is Simon who has come over from the well established and well regarded St Johns.

The owner is Andy who was the man about the house at Dockside a few years back.

We decided to try a selection of small plates and we were not disappointed. The tastings are a good size for 2 people to share. So we had sticky ribs. They were sticky melty and divine..

The Blondini ordered up the duck parfait and the salmon tartare.. They were better than the ribs, the parfait was incredibly rich and smooth. The salmon tartare came with croutons, capers and shredded egg.

The final of the quads was a lovely little chicken and porcini croquettes. Perhaps they could have done with a smidgen more porcini. To accompany the meal we ordered a Mt Beautiful Pinot Gris from Nth Canterbury.. It was light and with the range of dishes on offer , not obtrusive. It was off dry, smooth with a hint of pear.

Blondini had a lovely light unoaked chardonnay.. Astrolabe and she declared it very fine indeed.

We finished off lunch sharing a rhubarb and strawberry crumble.. It was huge.. and exquisitely fresh..

One of the lessons of the past week and the great Veuve Clicquot scandal was that it showed what an incredible force for communication and change that the social media has become.But you have to know h0w to use it as it is a pretty unruly and hungry beast with a very short attention span.

This is best exemplified by just who ended up carrying the story.

Take for instance this tweet

latest: JancisRobinson @bustedblonde Congratulations! Social media have the power to leech multiple kilos of Veuve C from tight fists. bit.ly Retweeted by you less than a minute ago

Thats gold in social media. Jancis Robinson has 40,000 followers on twitter. They are all people who have a serious interest in wine and food around the world. And she likes New Zealand and New Zealand wine.

So who were responsible for the story gaining a foothold in the social media. At the core were the bloggers. Whaleoil ( who started and led the whole campaign , his ability to get stories into the mainstream media is now well established), Kiwiblog, and Cactus and a host of other bloggers who quickly followed suit, were central to the story getting legs. They all have considerable weight in social media, while for the purposes of this campaign BustedBlonde just has the weight!

Many of them twitter and facebook as well. So its about using multiple channels and quickly.

You have to be bloody nimble and it helps if you have a core team as we did.

So did we have a plan? Nope not really. Just some ideas and some tactics. Its very organic and you need to have faith in your intuition.

Then came facebook. That cant be underestimated and its like an infection and of course there is Twitter. If you want to get your message out quick and it gets onto someone site who has 40,000 followers like Jancis then you have critical mass very quickly.

So this happened two days ago and and already the analysis of the clicquot competition and the social media response and its impact are flying around the world at lightening speed.

And then there were the emails. And by all accounts there were a few direct to NBR ( we have seen some). And of course TV3.

It defies all the old rules of PR. Its not about planning its more about plotting. n.

So whats the damage to NBR? - bugger all we reckon. As soon as they made amends and publicly people were heaping on the praise for the putting right.

And Veuve? Well the damage might last a bit longer. They were involved in a competition that was supposed to be all class.

I havent seen the winning entry but I bet its all lovely and worthy and romantic . It will tick all the brand boxes for Clicquot.

However the competition was so badly designed and executed that it ended up being all about ass. It provoked crassness. Then when the judges got crassness and not just from our entry but dozens of others as well, things went pear shaped.

For us Champagne is all about fun. And for the last couple of weeks we have had lots of it.

This is a great outcome. Thanks NBR. bustedblonde is still blubbing in the corner...

And thanks to Team Bubbles... Whale, Cactus, Gonzo, Keepingstock,Clint Heine, Motella,Oswald, and of course Kiwiblog.

Now to organise a kick arse party!!!!

NBR apologises for Veuve Clicquot competition confusion

Todd Scott | Thursday August 26, 2010 - 10:04am

The National Business Review unreservedly apologises for the confusion surrounding our 40th birthday competition. It was never our intention to cause confusion about the voting for the Win Your Weight in Veuve promotion but people have expressed frustration and we have listened to their concerns.

The official winner (as chosen by the judges from the top 10 voted entries) will be announced, on schedule, in NBR print tomorrow.

In addition, the publisher will personally provide Busted Blonde’s weight in Veuve Clicquot to her to demonstrate that NBR will not allow its integrity, transparency or honesty in its dealings with its readers to be compromised in any way. She received the most online votes in the competition and NBR happily salutes that success.

As a responsible host, the publisher would, however, appeal to Busted Blonde to urge her guests to wear life jackets if celebrating their win on Wellington Harbour. Let the festivities begin.

All this overt posturing that she and Rodney have put all the mucky crap behind them is disingenuous at best and a lie at worst.

She is only coming back to challenge Rodney again, her continued reinforcement of the contents of the 82 page dossier for caucus is a clear sign that there is still "trouble at mill."

Roy and Chris Carter share the same erroneous self belief. That they are really really good and that people really really want them and that they other guy ( Goff, Hide) are the really really bad guys. To the both of them loyalty counts for nothing. They both put themselves above the the parties they are part of. They are the worst type of politician - venal, narcissistic, holier than thou, and with a bent radar for public opinion.

They will also dine on the plates of adoration served up by waiting sycophants. That will continue to feed their bloated egos..

And if you want to see portals to inner madness that is fuelled by narcissism... look at the eyes of both...

Wednesday, 25 August 2010

Its a sad thing to see - an inflated ego... but everytime we see Heather Roy all we see is ego.. She tried to stage a coup - she lost. She is of no use to anyone - ( well maybe Simon Ewing Jarvie does...)

She seems to think that because Defence Minister Wayne Mapp wrote her a lovely letter that she must be really good at her job. Wayne Mapp maybe a bit on the stodgy side but he is an utter, utter gentleman.. A truly lovely cuddly bear of a bloke. And of course he wrote her a lovely note -because he probably thought the silly bint wasn't coming back! It would have been in style of a reference letter for future employment post parliament.

But no - she thinks its because she was really good. Reality and her are truly divorced.

Time to make way for someone else - Disloyalty can never be forgotten nor forgiven.

Well we are buggered... We have been talking to Busted Blonde who has been talking to the team at Campbell Live on TV3 .. And apparently NBR have revealled that the reason her entry did not win the NBR competition is because it was too ahhh errr CRASS.

How odd is that? This is a competition that is designed to attract creative people who are lard arses so they can then consume their weight of bubbles - now that IS crass.

Busted Blonde is serious about her bubbles. She likes really good bubbles. And the competition looked to have an air of levity (apparently not) about it so her entry reflected what was a lightness of thought and a heaviness of derriere.

She is happy to take the piss out of herself so to speak. So here is her entry:

I weight heaaaps! So on the back of my successful 50th birthday in Wellington

where I fed 50 people on Lobster and Bluff Oysters, I would hold a " Just be

cause you can" kick arse picnic on a pontoon in Frank Kitts Lagoon. However,

everyone would have to dress up and pretend to be complete wankers - which

shouldnt be too hard!

So yip its a bit of fun, just like most of the occasions where you imbibe good bubbles. It was to be a party on a pontoon where people could have a bloody big laugh at a bunch of people taking the piss - not out of the bubbles - no - out of themsleves. People who are happy in their own skin and who are happy to make fools of themselves for charity. A bit like people dressing up in masks for a mask ball ... or dressing up as silly animals and clowns for a kids charity..Or the Stars that race around the country in funny old cars for Starship - being complete dicks.

So we were going to dress up and act like Patsy and Edwina from Ab fab - all sweety sweety dahling dahling.

And over 1000 people thought that was a bloody good idea and would be a good charity fundraiser.

And the competition was geared towards getting votes.

So the only ones who are really CRASS are NBR and their poncy little marketing and PR people who take life and " brand" reputation far too seriously

So from today on Roarprawn will adhere to a new principle for guaranteed good times the ABC prinicple - Anything But Clicquot.

And for all those who have suggested that they would pay good money to charity to have the thick end of the magnum of bubbles, (that NBR have offered BustedBlonde to keep her quiet) inserted up Barry Colemans bottom - forget it - he is too much of a tight arse...

NOTE: we understand that Bustedblonde will put in an appearance on Campbell Live on TV3 tonight...

Well folks its official .. Busted Blonde, despite a great idea and support from hundreds of mates from both here and around the world, has not been awarded the gong in the NBR win your weight in bubbles competition..

She was of the understanding, and judging by the comments on facebook twitter and email by her mates and supporters, that the entry with the most votes would win.

But sadly thats not how the organisers of the competition see it.

Her idea was the have a fun party on the waterfront in Wellington that would become a fundraiser...

Busted has been officially informed that she will get a magnum for the fact that she garnered the most votes - well over 1000.

But that is a far cry from the amount she would have at her disposal if she had won the competition outright.

It was obvious to her that there was something wrong when first the competition deadline was changed from 5pm on the Friday to midnight.

Then they announced that the prize would be awarded on Monday , then on Monday that the winner would be chosen from the top ten entries and then that the winner was chosen and would be announced this coming Friday.

Then she got a call from the managing editor Todd Scott who said that she had won the "social media" prize of a magnum of bubbles..

At first she reckoned that she would not take it ( rather drink hemlock she said) but we here at Roarprawn have persuaded her to reconsider.. After all, the party was to be about raising funds for a good charity - so even if she raises a few hundred dollars it is worth it...

So to all the people who supported her efforts, the media people, some staff and writers of NBR, the journalists, press secretaries, , PR mavens, Chief Executives, MP's, lawyers, bloggers, family friends and just good folks, thanks heaps.

Now she is looking for ideas to turn one magnum of champagne into a big fundraiser for a very good cause.

Today we were in food heaven. We had lunch with our old mate the " Gun Runner" who likes good food as much as we do. Anyway we decided on Arbitrageur and we were not disappointed. I opted for the Ox tongue ( hence the headline) and trevally marinated in cider... The Ox tongue was carpaccio with a remoulade of celeriac. I wanted to hold out my plate and beg for more... it melted on my tongue.

The gun runner had lovely plate of sopresso a lovely sweet salami. and she followed that up with prawns...

We had the trevally in cider.. Now the two plates were exquisite entree size.. and it seemed a pricey $35 for the two but on reflection they were exquisite.. and well worth the money .

Sadly we ate the lovely ribbons of oxtongue before we took a pic ... so the pic is of the trevally...

Monday, 23 August 2010

Maori are faced with some choices that could lead to a total transformation of their society. The first is to cocoon themselves in a ritualistic paternalistic past or unleash the warriors within to fight for the lives of their children.

Two recent announcements, one by Paula Bennett they other by Pita Sharples show the face of the past and the face of a future.

The first thing that happened was the iwi leaders got all whiny about money. What crap. All it takes is for people to say no more, to say enough, to say what you are doing is not right. The " it takes a whole village to raise a child approach.

If Maori truly believe in Whanau Ora they need to show that it can be practiced at grass roots level it starts with them. So its about communities facing the problems within and dealing with them as individuals and collectively.

Paula Bennett's speech to the Iwi leaders has sent ripples through Maoridom and she has no doubt created some very powerful enemies who will try to undermine her rather than getting off there arses and into the homes of the their whanau and hapu who are killing and maiming their kids. That doesn't take money - just time and effort and some personal and tribal responsibility.

Bennetts stance is in stark contrast to that of Sharples. He is not just cuddling up to the gangs, he is playing a far more intimate game. It is extremely troubling and its a hallmark of the approach taken by Maori leaders of yesterday.

His calls for the Black Power to be treated differently than the rest of society sends the worst of all messages. It legitimises them and it sets them above the law. The only thing that Sharples should embrace are strategies to reduce the numbers of kids joining up and strategies to get the women away from men who kill and maim. Strategies that ensure that gang members and their kids find some respect for the law and understand the consequences of risky behaviour.

The Gang creed is still one of violence not peace and the only elements of Maori tikanga that they take on board are the showy ritualistic ones, the ones that dont actually do much for anyone but waste a shit load of time.

It is time for the strong women we see every day trying to do the best at the terrible cliff of evil that children are hurled off every day to take a greater role in leading

them away from the brink.

Simply said, the current crop of male Maori leaders have failed their people. It does not matter how many hotels they buy, how many tree they plant - it matters not a whit when the life of their mokos are shaken from them on a weekly basis.

The silly posturing antics we see every day down on the Marae and in the corridors of power as they strut their arrogance - is not saving our kids. Its time for them to stand aside let Maori women lead and let the true Maori renaissance begin.

Roarprawn is a blog by people of the Global village who hate bad shit

This blog is about politics and stuff and just so it doesn't get too boring, it's also about other news that takes our fancy or irks us and food and wine . Roarprawn was started by Bustedblonde. A feisty gal who knew her shit and was scared of bugger all apart from wasps, and shipwrecks. And if you want to join us or comment or give us a tip, then email the Brunette on brunettenz@gmail.com